“Made, Is Making, or Will Make?”
David Barnard on the sales fluctuations in the App Store, and how hard is it to gauge future success/sales on same.
Apple sues HTC for infringing 20 iPhone patents
Engadget has the documentation. I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of people decrying the use of “user interface” patents. This kind of thing can be pretty vile. For example, one of the patents is for:
“Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,”
Which is absurd.
Apple Now Blocking ‘Overtly Sexual’ Apps from App Store
First they came for the creepy almost-porn apps, and I said nothing because I wasn’t into creepy almost-porn apps. I’m sure this makes sense to businessmen, but I am really fucking uncomfortable with Apple being in charge of what is considered “overtly sexual.”
This is purely “I know it when I see it” fascism. There is no defense for it that doesn’t start and end with “they can do what they want so shut up.”
Notes from John Gruber’s MacWorld Talk
Subtitle: “Apple’s 10 Biggest Problems” and featuring Steve Jobs Mortality, which is a great name for a band.
Jeffrey Zeldman on Flash, the iPad, and Standards
You can always count on Zeldman to say things like
As the percentage of web users on non-Flash-capable platforms grows, developers who currently create Flash experiences with no fallbacks will have to rethink their strategy and start with the basics before adding a Flash layer. They will need to ensure that content and experience are delivered with or without Flash.
But it’s still good to have him say them.
Rebuttal.
(photo sources: douglubey.com, chris.pirillo.com, deconcept.com, adobe.com, cutesoft.net, adrianparr.com)
World’s Biggest iPod Dock is 95db of Rock and Roll
A beautiful, gigantic, speaker for Apple’s beautiful, little, device. Starting at $4,495.00.
A Concise Summary of Charlie Booker’s Recent Anti(?)-Apple Rant
Cleversimon gets to the heart of Charlie Booker’s strange rambly piece from earlier this week:
Finishing the sentence “I’ll never buy a Mac because” with anything but “it doesn’t meet my needs” means you don’t get to accuse Apple users of making irrational purchasing decisions based on slavish adherence to an ideology.
It’s not surprising that Booker’s view is purposefully self-contradictory. He makes his living being a contrarian. For him It doesn’t have to make sense so long as it is rabble-rousing.
Music Publishers Want Royalties For 30 Second Song Samples
Not a story from the Onion. I don’t know where to start on this, I really don’t.
Preliminary Notes on Apple’s Recent “It’s Only Rock and Roll” Music Event
In no particular order:
App recommendations: Wholly necessary, but we aren’t out of the woods yet regarding App Store curation. I bet there’s a good deal of money to be made just doing that: Curating collections of apps. Boing Boing got huge during the blog boom for curating other blogs, why wouldn’t it work for applications on a still-new platform? Someone’s going to get rich digging down on serious Touch applications.
iPod Touch No camera, no mention of 3GS-type speed bump. Kinda got the shaft. I can’t think of a single good reason for not including a camera that doesn’t involve trying to trick people into buying a Nano. Surely they aren’t afraid a (not that great) camera is going to steer fence-sitters from the iPhone to the Touch? Update: It’s now come out that the 8gb ($199) iPod Touch has the older, slightly slower, hardware, and all the others in the Touch line have the upgraded “3GS” innards. You’ll notice on the “Compare iPod Models” page on Apple’s site, the 8gb is sectioned off from his higher-capcity and speedier brothers.
iTunes 9 Now with more bloat and cumbersome, non-portable, versions of the extra features that people who illegally download albums already get in more useful formats. Still a 32-bit Carbon app. Gruber was right about WebKit.
John Siracusa’s Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Review
If there is only one 10.6 review/recap you read, it should be this one. John is the best at this. It is part history lesson, part analysis, part commentary.
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Compatibility List
Probably a good idea to consult this before you take the plunge tomorrow.
iPhone Dictionary, Censored by Apple
Apple’s latest incredible move: Censoring a fucking dictionary. Apple’s conduct re: the App Store has long since passed the yardstick of “stupid” and into “utterly inept.”
If they cannot be trusted to stick to the rules set forth by human society, then fuck ‘em. NOBODY censors dictionaries. Not Wal-Mart, not Borders, nobody. Censoring reference material is not just stupid, it is dangerously stupid.
Apple Pulls Google Voice Application From The App Store
This is super not cool, Apple. How is GV Mobile (the App’s name) not okay, but Skype is?
Apple Claims 91% of $1,000+ PC Market Revenue in June
For all Windows PCs, ASP was $515 in June. For Macs: $1,400. Desktop Windows PC ASP: $489. Mac desktops: $1,398. Windows notebook ASP was $520, or $569 when removing all those nasty, margin-sucking netbooks. Mac laptops: $1,400.
If you use your computer more than an hour a day, you’re wasting your time with a cheap/flimsy/poorly made one.
Apple confirms death of iPhone worker in China
I was going to post this with the title “Tortured iPhone Worker Commits Suicide”, but then I realized I don’t work for TechCrunch. That seems to be what happened, though:
According to various Chinese media reports, the worker at Chinese manufacturer Foxconn committed suicide last week after a fourth-generation iPhone prototype for which he was responsible went missing.
Word is that the worker was then tortured by Foxconn security, which led him to snap and take a leap off the building. If this is true, Apple needs to step up and tell Foxconn to fuck off.
Update: Fake Steve says it’s fucked over there, and we all knew that already. He’s basically right.
Apple Blocks Palm Pre iTunes Syncing
Very expected, but sooner than I thought. What are the odds on an Apple/Palm legal showdown over iTunes lockout? Seems like Palm would have a good chance.
AnandTech Tests New Macbook Pro Battery Life
According to their tests, the new 15″ MBP lasted almost TWICE as long as the previous model– a total of about 5.5 hours to a charge. That is a huge jump, and as far as I can see it is unprecedented. They say:
There’s only a 46% increase in battery capacity, there shouldn’t be a ~100% increase in battery life…ever.
I figured Apple must’ve had a damn good reason for making the battery internal, and it looks like this is it.